The Challenge of Inclusive Design: Getting it Right for All Ages (and Why this Matter)

16 May 2018, 14:30
- 16:30

Catharine Ward Thompson (Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Edinburgh)

Respondent:Sebastian Macmillan (Director, Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge)Ben Spencer (Research Fellow, School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University)

Abstract

The presentation draws on a number of projects with older people to understand what inspires and enables access to outdoor environments as we age. Sustainable urban development requires us to ensure our cities are age-friendly, as the World Health Organisation has underlined in considering links between health, quality of life and sustainability. We have good evidence on the qualities of the outdoor environment that either support or frustrate access in older age, and the presentation will briefly summarise these, with a particular focus on green and open space. But we also have evidence that early life experience can make a difference to how the environment is perceived and experienced in later life, and (in particular) the health and wellbeing implications of these experiences across the lifecourse. There are also potential conflicts between user demands and needs at different life stages, which challenge urban and landscape designers’ ability to deliver inclusive design.